1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method for making an animal feed supplement and, in particular, a molasses-based animal feed supplement in solid, block form.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
The value of molasses-containing supplements as a palatable carbohydrate source and nutrient vehicle in animal diets has been recognized for many years. Phosphoric acid has often been added to the molasses supplement to serve as a preservative and as a source of dietary phosphorus. Urea has been added to animal feed supplements to supply nonprotein nitrogen, and fats and vitamins have also been included as ingredients in animal feed supplements. Molasses-based feed supplements are particularly valuable fed either "free-choice" to grazing cattle or in confinement where feed mixing facilities are lacking. (Free-choice feeding allows the animal to consume from a conveniently placed reservoir of liquid or solid supplement according to need.) To control consumption during free-choice feeding, physical controls (e.g. by use of a lick wheel or by varying the hardness of a feed block) and/or chemical controls (e.g. palatability) may be used.
Solid animal feed supplements have been prepared from molasses and other ingredients to augment the dietary requirements of animals, especially cattle, when forage is scarce or of low quality, i.e., during the summer months in California and summer through winter in the Pacific Northwest. Solid feed blocks offer the advantage of free choice feeding of cattle, thereby reducing the labor and expense otherwise incurred to mix the feed supplement with the cattle's feed ration. An additional advantage of solid blocks, containing molasses, is that transportation of molasses to remote locations is easier. Molasses blocks have been manufactured by compressing ingredients into a molded shape or by evaporative heating of the ingredients. Both of these methods have certain disadvantages. For example, energy-supplying ingredients, such as molasses, and heat-sensitive vitamins (if added) may degrade during heating at the temperature necessary to evaporate water.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,027,043, animal feed supplements are disclosed which are prepared by mixing a phosphate source and an aluminum or an alkaline earth metal ingredient with molasses to solidify the resultant mixture. This patent discloses that the combination of a soluble phosphate or phosphoric acid, at from 0.5 to 5 weight percent P.sub.2 O.sub.5, and an oxide or salt of aluminum, magnesium, calcium or mixture thereof, at from 0.5 to about 5 weight percent (expressed as the oxide) will solidify molasses. This reference does not recognize that the rate of hardening and the ultimate hardness does not increase significantly beyond the range of from 1 to 2 percent, by weight, calcium and 1 to 2 percent, by weight, phosphorus, nor the fact that the amount of phosphorus greater than about 2 percent by weight is not economic, as it is in excess of nutritional needs of animals such as cattle. Moreover, this reference does not recognize that the rate of solidification and the ultimate hardness of the resulting blocks is pH dependent, or that the optimum rate of solidification (or hardening) and block hardness occurs in a very narrow pH range. Nor does this reference recognize that the extent of hardening of cane molasses and beet molasses-based products (cane molasses and beet molasses are two of the most preferred molasses for use in animal feed supplements) varies greatly with pH.
The use of calcium chloride in liquid molasses-based supplements for cattle has been investigated by Grosso and Nelson. (See "Calcium Chloride in Liquid Feed Supplements" reported in complete texts of the speeches given at the 1973 annual convention, NFIA-COUNTER '73, Oct. 14-16, 1973, Louisville, KY.) The object of these investigators was to provide high soluble calcium content liquid supplements and avoid solidification; nevertheless, some of the formulations they prepared did solidify. The formulations that did solidify generally did not have a nutritionally appropriate amount of phosphorus, i.e., they contained either too much or too little phosphorus. Certain of the other formulations that had nutritionally appropriate amounts of phosphorus did not harden since the phosphorus was supplied as a polyphosphate which (as will be discussed below) does not interact with calcium ions to provide a solid product at the nutritionally appropriate calcium and phosphorus concentrations or at convenient temperature and mixing conditions.
In view of the above, it is clear that it would be desirable to have a method for preparing solid, molasses-based animal feed supplements, having a nutritionally appropriate phosphorus content, that does not suffer from the difficulties of the prior art methods discussed above.
Therefore, it is one object of this invention to provide an improved process for preparing solid, molasses-based animal feed supplements using the equipment and temperatures available to small distributors of cattle feed.
Another object is to provide a method for forming solid, molasses-based animal feed supplements which is of such simplicity that molasses can readily be converted into a solid product at any place at which liquid molasses is available.
Another object is to reduce the cost of molasses-based animal feed supplements by reducing or eliminating expenses incident to the handling and transportation of liquid products to the point of use, i.e., the feeding range.
Another object is to eliminate the requirement for accurate measuring of the ingredients required in the prior art method of making solid, molasses-based animal feed supplements by mixing a phosphate source with an aluminum or alkaline earth metal ingredient.
Further objects and advantages are to provide improved steps, elements, and arrangements thereof in a method effective in accomplishing the intended purposes.
Other objects and advantages of the instant invention will become apparent from a careful reading of the specification below.